The Partnership for 21st Century Skills has identified financial literacy as a 21st Century Content area. We as adults need to be financially savvy and we need to impart that money sense to our students and children.
Tonight one of my girlfriends, Wendy Sterndale, told me about an awesome book offer that Suze Orman, financial guru, has to offer women that I hope you’ll accept or share with the women you care about. She has written a book called Women & Money: Owning the Power to Control Your Destiny.
Although geared towards women, I’m sure anyone can benefit from the financial wisdom. It’s a five month program to help you create a healthy relationship to money, make more out of the money you have for yourself and your loved ones, and gain more financial freedom. If you open a SaveYourself account with TD Ameritrade, they’ll add $100 to your account. So you can start easily investing and recoup your investment in her book too!
I’m on a major campaign to learn more about finances so that I can make fabulous choices around money and teach these tools and strategies to my students. I hope you join me in making financial literacy part of your life and your teaching.
Teacher Vicki Davis of coolcatblog created this excellent video about technology and the fear that people have around using it. It’s hosted on TeacherTube.com, a new educational alternative to YouTube.View this video file For more information on the reasons we need to teach technology in the schools, watch the presentation on 21st Century Skills.
What are the skills that a student and citizen of the Information Age needs to have?
The Partnership for the 21st Century has conducted a survey to identify the key skills needed for success in the 21st Century. Every student in your school or district should be:
1. a critical thinker
2. a problem solver
3. an innovator
4. an effective collaborator
5. a self-directed learner
6. information and media literate
7. globally aware
8. civically engaged
Ken Kay, President of the Partnership for 21st Century Skills, explains in his presentation at the FETC Conference about why these skills are important. This hour presentation includes 8 strategies that your school and district will want to integrate into the curriculum to best prepare your students for the quickly changing terrain, as well as why these skills are critical to our students.
I’m going to share this presentation with my colleagues. It will provide an introduction to discussing what are the skills necessary for success in the 21st Century. I would love to get a school-wide consensus about what skills our students need to have and how to best support them in acquiring these lifelong skills. If you haven’t seen Did you know?, you will want to watch this dynamic and thought-provoking presentation by Karl Fisch. It’s only about 6 minutes long. It’ll give you the inspiration and motivation to listen to the hour-long presentation, if you need a bit of a boost.
Did you know? The rate of change on this planet is increasing at an exponential rate. The amount of information on the planet has doubled in the past few years and continues to increase at an amazing pace. We can only begin to imagine what the world will look like in 10 years. We live in exciting and wondrous times - and perhaps, it’s a bit unnerving.
Did you know? As educators, we have an important role in preparing our students for a world that is only just starting to take form. We live in the Information Age, a time of connection and expansion.
Did you know? China will soon be the largest English speaking country on the planet.
Did you know? Karl Fisch, Director of Technology at Arapahoe High School in Colorado, has created an amazing video presentation entitled Did You Know? It takes us on a brief journey into the future world of astounding facts that will make you think about where we need to be as educators and as a society. He has some additional presentations that you will also want to see. (Note:The music in Did You Know? is a mix of three tracks from The Last of the Mohicans.)
Did you know? Scott McLeod, Assistant Professor in the Department of Educational Policy and Administration at the University of Minnesota, has has an excellent blog, Dangerously Irrelevant. If you are interested in exploring the value and direction of education, you’ll appreciate what he has to contribute. He has also has links to Karl Fisch’s presentations.
For more information about the skills our students will need, read this post about 21st Century Skills.
Be in the know… it is the Information Age after all.
What is Squidoo? Squidoo is a website where people can create their own “lenses.” A lens is your perspective or favorite resources on a topic. For example, I created a lens on Fractions. It includes websites that have clear explanations of fractions, fun math games and practice, educational YouTube videos and books for further individual study. Squidoo lenses have great potential for teachers to aggregate helpful resources for students on a particular topic. I hope that this article inspires you to create your own and become a lensmaster.
You can build a site for free with the easy to use module-based templates. My first lens on integers took me about 3 hours to build. When I created it, I used my del.icio.us account to organize the different sites that I was interested in including. When I posted a site to my del.icio.us account, I tagged it with the lens topic. I’ve continued to add to it over the months and it’s now an excellent resource for both students and teachers. I’m delighted that it was included in the March National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) News Bulletin in the “Web Bytes” section.
There are a variety of modules that you can add to build your lens, including text/write, link list, amazon.com, poll, make a list, YouTube, Google maps and iTunes. The lens can be made more interactive by adding polls. I added a poll to my Ecological Footprint Education site about the size of people’s ecological footprint.
Most of the modules can be made more interactive with the “Plexo” feature. Plexo is a tool that allows your readers to rank or add to the data in your site. For example, on my Vedic math site readers can give feedback on which resources they found most valuable. The feedback automatically rearranges the sites from most to least popular. I’ve just started playing with Plexo modules this week. It feels like a nice way to help your readers sort through data and become an active learner. Plexo is also helpful because people can add other valuable resources to your site.
As the creator of the site, you can moderate how much interactivity you want. You can allow comments or not. You can also require that additions to your site be approved before they are published. So there is an element of quality control. As with most sites that allow rating, people must have a Squidoo account.
So what would you like to share with your students? What topic would you like to be a lensmaster on?
Del.icio.us is a website that allows you to bookmark sites. It’s called a social bookmark because, unlike bookmarks you add on your computer, you can access them from any computer. You can use social bookmarks to research information, collaborate or share sites with friends and family. The bookmarks are by default public information; however, you can change the settings so that others have no or limited access to what you mark.
Why Use Del.icio.us
Research on the Internet using social bookmarks is easy.
Bookmarked sites are accessible from any computer.
You can tag your bookmarks and organize them. You can use multiple tags for the same site. For example, I tag my Educating Millennials in the Information Age lens with millennials, information_age and squidoo.
Great sites can be shared with students or colleagues because social bookmarks are public.
You can “bundle” tags. For example, in my del.icio.us account I have a bundle called InformationAge and within it I have several related tags including wiki, blogs, squidoo and millennials.
Other people can benefit from your research. Instead of searching through an ever growing number of websites and blogs, I can search within del.icio.us and find what other people find valuable. Hence saving myself time.
You can share sites with other people using various features and tools. Del.icio.us has an easy to follow help section that explains the tools, such as networks, and includes why they are helpful.
You can also keep bookmarks private. You can still access your bookmarks from any computer, but others can have no or limited access to bookmarks.
5 Things to Know Before Using Social Bookmarks
Before you start to post things to del.icio.us, there are several things I highly recommend:
#1: Decide how you intend to use del.icio.us.
Are you intending to use social bookmarks for research or collaboration? Do you intend to share this information with others or is this for your own use?
Deciding whether you intend to have your bookmarks serve as a reference for others or mainly for personal use will impact how you structure your bookmarks.
#2: Choose your tags before you get started.
Before getting started put some thought into key tags that you would use. For me, the main things I was researching were math resources for students, Vedic math, Information Age and teaching technology.
#3:Think about some umbrella concepts that help you “bundle” your tags.
My bundles are EducationalVision, Math, InformationAge and Family. The last category being sites that members of my family created.
#4:Be mindful of the user name you choose.
When you bookmark sites and they are public, you are creating an on-line profile. You are identifying yourself with the information you mark as a favorite. Be thoughtful about the on-line profile you are creating and that this information is public. Even if you choose to use a name different from your actual name, note that the web is an amazing place and that information gets linked and connected. So be thoughtful of what you want identified with your user name, even if it isn’t your actual name.
#5: Allow for Private Savings.
Go to the “Settings” button on the top right and change to allow for private bookmarking. This will put a “do not share” button option on your page when you go to save a site.
The amazing thing about the Internet is not only how fast information can be dispersed, but also the profusion of information available. I’m learning new skills daily as I navigate in the Information Age. When I’m looking for information on a topic I follow this basic template: gather, sift, sort & synthesize. Although the basic idea of moving through information may be the same as during the Industrial Revolution, there are new tools and considerations for this new age.
Gather
When searching for information on-line use search words intelligently. For example, if I want to learn about enlightened teaching, I might start with enlightened teaching. If that doesn’t yield results, I would do similar words like compassionate teaching or education compassion.
Add or delete words from your query depending on what type of, or how much, information is retrieved. I could be more specific and look for teaching compassion strategies.
Sometimes you want specific information. Putting words in quotes will find only results where those words come together. For example waldorf education and “waldorf education” will not produce the same results. Waldorf education (without quotes) could look like “waldorf salad made in a consumer education class”. Whereas “waldorf education” will definitely be about waldorf schools.
Gathering also requires a way to store information so you can sift through it. A wonderful tool to do this is a free website called del.icio.us. When you use a web-based service like del.icio.us to publicly share resources, it’s called “social bookmarking.” It’s like your own on-line, public library. Anyone can see what you’ve posted. Create a del.icio.us account and post sites that you like to your del.icio.us account, which leads to the next task of sifting.
Sift Learning how to sift through information and to determine the bias and reliability of sources is a valuable critical thinking skill.
As you visit different sites, it’s important to know who is the source or author.
Identifying reliable sources are skills we regularly utilize and teach are kids. On the Internet it becomes an even more crucial skill due to the plethora of inaccurate information being disseminated.
Ask yourself what are the source’s biases.
Have discussions with your students around reliability and bias as a means of sifting through information. Why not have an activity where you pose a question and list several sites. Have the kids determine if there is a bias or if the source is reliable.
Sort Use your deli.cio.us account to sort through material by using the tag feature. Tags are keywords associated with the information. Type in meaningful tags that will help you sort the information. For example, I found a PowerPoint presentation on educating Millennials. I tagged it as “education millennials powerpoint technology.”
My sister Jessie Newburn taught me about the tag “someday maybe,” which she read in David Allen’s book Getting Things Done. The “someday maybe” tag means she doesn’t want to investigate it now, but it may be of value someday, maybe. Periodically, she goes through it and deletes or acts on the “someday maybe” posts.
Synthesize
This is where life gets more interesting. As educators who use Bloom’s taxonomy, it’s always exciting when we can get kids to synthesize the material.
What new meaning can you create from the material?
What new insights do you have when you see the spectrum of information?
My Squidoo lenses on Educating Millennials and Integers are examples of ways that I went through the gather, sift, sort and synthesize model. The creation of the lenses was the synthesis of all the research and how I connected the dots. Very fun indeed!
People seem not to see that their opinion of the world is also a confession of their character. - Ralph Waldo Emerson
Something that people are becoming aware of is that when you write on the Internet a residue is left. We need to educate ourselves and our students about developing positive and thoughtful on-line profiles.
On-Line Profile It’s easy to find out your on-line profile. Just type in your name in Google or another major search engine. Do a couple of variations. For example, I would do Rebecca Newburn, “Rebecca Newburn” and rebeccanewburn. Find out what comes up. Read on to find out about some of the unintended residue that can be left on the web. You’ll be surprised!
Tone is Difficult to Interpret It is too easy to misinterpret tone in an email. Sometimes a short response can come off as harsh. If it’s someone you care about, always discuss things that may be perceived as having an edge in person or on the phone.
Positive Imprints
When we write we need to constantly ask ourselves, “Does this express who I am?” For example, emailing someone in a bad mood or writing a sharp criticism leaves an imprint. Is this how you want to be perceived? Be mindful when writing. First ask if it is necessary to give feedback and if so, communicate in a polite and mindful manner. Leave a positive imprint- one that shows that you have a balanced perspective and are considerate and thoughtful.
Unintended Residue
I used to have my name as my username for everything, including on-line purchasing accounts such as E-Bay. My sister and I periodically check our on-line profile by doing a query on our names. She was quite chagrined when her query showed her E-Bay purchase of Hanky Panky underwear. She and I are both much more aware of when we use our real name and when we need to have pseudonyms.
People need to be taught about how easy it is to attach your name to both comments and purchases. As we become more conscious of the imprint we leave on the planet, we need to apply the same mindfulness to the residue on the web.
Information Age kids are digital natives. We, their parents and teachers, are immigrants to the world of technology. Yet as adults we need to provide road-maps for a safe journey in territory that is not our native land.
It’s invaluable for us to have conversations with kids about how to use the Internet intelligently and thoughtfully. Providing clear guidelines about what sites they can visit is one discussion you can have. However, there is so much to be explored and the terrain is constantly changing.
This site by teacher David Warlick has some very helpful guidelines for parents on Internet use. Much of the information can support teachers too. Another important step is to have an Internet use policy at your school.
We live in amazing times - including amazingly fast! You can click on a button and find information in milliseconds that may have required research in basement archives a decade ago. We are exposed to, and sometimes overwhelmed by, a vast array of information. What’s important? What’s not? It’s a new age we live in and it requires new skills.
Our educational system was forged during the Industrial Revolution. Now it’s time to look at the system and get it wired for the Information Age. Our kids are tech-savvy and use technology in many facets of their lives, as do we. I’m asking myself how can I engage students in the classroom by letting them explore, create and find meaning in the material. Increasing the use of technology is one answer. I’m at the beginning of my learning curve.
Now that we’re in the Information Age, people around the world can communicate and share ideas instantaneously. Technology is an important tool, but as any good educator can tell you, it’s the human connections that we make that lead to deep learning. It’s wonderful to learn about technology and share information to make our lessons interactive and dynamic. I also believe that creating opportunities for personal connections is going to be as critical in the Information Age as Internet connections.
